Saturday, May 24, 2014

Interview Time: Mike Wolfer

About Mike Wolfer

I've been a fan of Mike Wolfer for some time now and when I saw he had an already-successful Kickstarter for his comic "Ragdoll" that finishes May 30th (Find it here and pledge!) I knew I had to do two things:

1. Become a backer so I could get the comic and the awesome stretch-goal bonsues

2. Interview Mike Wolfer about Ragdoll so that I could discuss his past projects I've enjoyed and help spread the word about "Ragdoll"

Read below to learn more about Mike's past work, his current Kickstarter, and see his announcement for the next "Ragdoll" project titled, "Ragdoll: Orgy of the Vampires".

The Interview

1. For those of my readers who don’t know who you are,
please share a little about yourself, such as how you got into comics, what
you've done in the past, and what you’re currently working on.

The quick
career recap is I started in comics in 1987, self-publishing DAIKAZU and WIDOW.
When Avatar Press launched in 1996, they acquired WIDOW (and me) as one of
their first published titles, and over the years with Avatar, I’ve had the
opportunity to work on a slew of books, mostly in the realm of horror. Some of
my more notable works has been writing/illustrating Warren Ellis’ GRAVEL and
Garth Ennis’ STITCHED, co-writing LADY DEATH with Brian Pulido, and writing,
illustrating or both on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and FRIDAY THE 13TH. I've also had the opportunity to work with Alan Moore on YUGGOTH CREATURES and
George R.R. Martin on SKIN TRADE. Currently, I’m writing and drawing a 6-issue
arc of CROSSED: BADLANDS, and have just begun writing a new series for
Zenescope Entertainment titled INFERNO: RINGS OF HELL.

2. Right now you are doing an already-successfully-funded
Kickstarter for “Ragdoll”. Can you share a little bit about what makes the character of Ragdoll
special to you and made you want to engage in a Kickstarter campaign for it?

RAGDOLL is something which has been near and dear to my
heart for many, many years. It’s one of those books that I was able to pour my
heart into, because it was created solely to please me. It’s everything I would
ever want to do in a comic, and I was fortunate enough to have the backing of
Avatar Press to do just that: Anything I wanted. I grew up reading Warren Mags
(EERIE, CREEPY, VAMPIRELLA) and loving all of the Gothic horror films from
Hammer Studios, so RAGDOLL is a culmination of all of those early influences,
from the 18th Century setting of the story, to the fully gray-toned
ink washes on the pages. It’s everything I loved as a kid. As for the
Kickstarter, I've been wanting to see how viable that system is for someone
like me, to see if it would be possible to publish more personal works on the
side, outside of my company work. So far, we’re off to a great start, so I
think I’ll be doing more Kickstarter-funded projects in the future.

3. It is interesting to see that Ragdoll was originally in
an Avatar anthology comic known as “Raw Media Quarterly” and existed as more of
an X-rated comic, yet your Kickstarter is going to remove the completely-graphic
sexuality and instead go for more of a “Hard R” rating, as I've seen you
describe it. Are you changing the format slightly because you think Ragdoll can
stand on its own as a story without as much as the sex, and what makes you feel
that way?

Yeah- The deal
with that is it was a commissioned series for an adults only comic, so each
10-12 page chapter that saw print in each issue of RMQ had to have the
prerequisite, explicit sex scenes. I think that I made it work, even though it
kind of messed with the flow of the narrative, but that was the nature of the
job, so I don’t have a problem with it. But very few people saw or have even
heard of RAGDOLL, and I've always thought that was a shame, because I think it
is one of my strongest stories, and one of the most interesting characters I've ever created. So now, 15 years later, I’m bringing her back, but I've retooled
the story to take out the “X” material, which subsequently makes the story flow
so much better and provided me the opportunity to add new pages of art, and
make tweaks to the old art that I wasn't satisfied with. And the whole thing
has been rewritten, and has been newly re-lettered by Natalie Jane. Still, it’s
a pretty sexy story, and there are a lot of adult situations inherent in the
tale. That hasn't changed. All I've done is taken out the in-your-face close-up
shots.

4. I read a collection of your “Razor X” series you did for
Avatar that originally appeared in “Threshold” and then was collected in
various formats. It was extremely sexually charged to say the least (such as
when that man had his penis cut off) but not necessarily pornographic. Is that
basically the same sort of thing you’re going for with “Ragdoll”?

As far as the
actual depictions, what’s drawn on the page, yes. But as for the story itself,
nope, absolutely not. “Razor X” was designed as a total shock piece; it was
meant to push everything right up to the edge, but not over it, and was really
just straight-up exploitation. And I had a great time doing it, don’t get me
wrong. But RAGDOLL is different, and has been from the start. It’s always been
a multi-tiered character study, with all kinds of subtle statements, most importantly
in support of feminism. But you know, everyone will see something different in
it, and some of the more minute details might get lost, but it’s a dense read, and
if you pay close attention, you’re going to see a specific agenda that goes
deeper than the graphic violence and nudity.

5. What are the benefits of doing a Kickstarter as opposed
to other more traditional methods? What are the downsides?

Don’t jinx me!
So far, there have been no downsides! Ha! The benefits are as I mentioned
earlier: This is giving me a chance to do whatever I’d like to do, and to do it
specifically for my fans. Because of their backing of the project, they’re
allowing me to create something specifically for them, and it’s been just
incredible to know that I have that kind of support and interest in my work.
What some people don’t understand is that just because you work for a
publisher, they’re not going to just unleash you on whatever title you want to
do. They’re not going to publish just anything. So while I've worked on several
awesome projects for Avatar Press, it’s still not like doing a creator-owned
book; they assign me something and I give it my all. But I have all kinds of personal
series pitches which I have plotted out, and unfortunately they just don’t fit
with Avatar’s line, or they don’t think there would be enough following (sales)
for it to be a successful company release. With self-publishing, the overhead
is much lower, and Kickstarter will hopefully allow me to get some of those
creator-owned projects into print, which publishers have been leery about
committing to.

6. You recently illustrated the adaptation of a George RR
Martin story about werewolves titled “Skin Trade”. I enjoyed it quite a lot,
but found it odd that it seemed so perfectly set up to have another mini-series
and yet one still hasn't been announced. Is there possibly more “Skin Trade” in
the works, and would you be the illustrator again?

I haven’t
heard anything like that, and actually, I think that the deal with George for
that property was just the adaptation of the short story. But you’re right-
There are all kinds of directions that could take if there was a sequel!

7. I’m a big fan of the character of William Gravel, having
read his adventures in various mini-series written by Warren Ellis and
illustrated most of the time by you, and the new one written just by you. His
earlier adventures had you as the illustrator most of the time, but I believe I
recall you saying you often had plot input too. How is it different to now be
exclusively writing about Gravel in his newest ongoing but not drawing it too?

I’m a big fan
of Gravel, too! Yeah, you’re right- With the third black and white series, STRANGE
KILLINGS, Warren had me “choreograph” some of the action sequences, and he
figured that since I created them, I might as well write the corresponding
dialog. And that continued on to where he would just supply me with detailed
plots for each issue, along with some very specific dialog, and I would do the
rest. I do miss drawing the book, but it’s been really fun working with other
artists, to see their interpretations of the characters and action, and I've been pleasantly surprised the whole time.

8. What do you think makes Gravel such a good character that
you and Warren have been able to tell so many stories with him? His
personality, his mostly-mysterious origins, the way the magic he uses isn't cute and fluffy but raw and brutal?

I think you just hit the nail on the head. It’s not what
people were expecting, and with each story we try to maintain that flow, and
those expectations of “anything can happen.” I think you’ll see that very
clearly with the concluding issue of GRAVEL: COMBAT MAGICIAN (#4)… Anything can
happen!

9. I have to admit I have never read “Stitched”. I know it
starts as a movie and then continued into a comic, and I haven’t seen the movie
and fear I would be lost if I just picked up the trades. Is this the case, or
would I be fine? Where could I and my readers acquire a copy of the movie?

Dude… You are
absolutely missing it! STITCHED has been one of the greatest storytelling
experiences of my career, and that’s backed up by incredible reviews. I did the
art for the first arc, written by Garth, then I took over as writer and
Fernando Furukawa was the artist on arcs 2 and 3. You wouldn't be missing a
thing. Garth wrote a screenplay for a full-length movie, the adaptation of
which is in issues #1-7 of the series. The short film which Garth directed is
only the first 15 minutes of that screenplay, and it’s what we see in issue #1.
I think you can find the DVD on eBay, or from Comic Cavalcade. I’d urge you to
seek out the trades, because it was another of the things I wrote where readers
were taken totally off-guard by the direction of the book. They were expecting
a war story, and got solid, straight-up horror.

10. Your character “Widow” has appeared with various
publishers, with her most recently having been at Avatar with series such as
“Widow X” (which I would love to read but have had difficulty finding
fairly-priced issues of). Can you share a little bit about the history of this
character?

WIDOW began as
a fluke in my self-publishing days, just a change of pace from my giant monster
extravaganza, DAIKAZU. I was only going to do a little, three-issue series,
then get back to the kaiju. But something about the character clicked, sales
were great, and that’s all I did for probably the next 6 years. Other
publishers were seeing that success and wanted to incorporate the title into
their own comic lines, so I took the series to London Night Studios for a bit,
then back to my own Ground Zero Comics, then over to Avatar Press, where she’s
been ever since. The character was in hiatus for many, many years, but fans
have continually asked for her return, so I was happily able to use her as a
supporting character in WAR GODDESS, published by Avatar’s sister company,
Boundless Comics. I’d say that WIDOW was what put me on the map, I guess you
could say, and I really would like to do something else new with her. And you
know, with Kickstarter, you never know what can happen!

11. Who is a creator you haven’t worked with (as either a
writer or an artist) whom you would like to collaborate with?

Well, if it’s
a “wish list,” I’d say Berni Wrightson, Richard Corben, or Carlos Magno. I've always been much more of a follower of artists than of writers, I guess.

12. What upcoming projects do you have that you can share
some information with us about? You’ve made it no secret that with the
already-happening success of your Kickstarter for “Ragdoll” a volume 2 might be
on the way.

Right now, the
only solid things on my agenda are arcs on Avatar’s CROSSED: BADLANDS and
Zenescope’s INFERNO, but there will probably be more for both publishers. As
for self-publishing, yes, I absolutely intend on doing a RAGDOLL sequel,
RAGDOLL: ORGY OF THE VAMPIRES (that’s an exclusive for you, by the way). That
Kickstarter will run a bit differently as the current one, because for Volume
1, the art is completed, so I’m going to press very shortly after the campaign
ends. For Volume 2, there will be more like a 4 month wait time, while I draw
the book and get it printed. But hopefully, it will all be worth the wait, and
I’m very anxious to hear what people who follow my work think about the first
installment.

13. Can you share a bit more about "Ragdoll: Orgy of the Vampires" and how it will continue the story started in this current Kickstarted volume, or will it be its own new story?
RAGDOLL: ORGY OF THE VAMPIRES will be an all-new tale, and a direct sequel to THE CURSE OF RAGDOLL. With each successive chapter, I'll do a "The Story So Far" recap for new readers, but I'm plotting Ragdoll's tale as one continuing story, and small plot details which might seem innocuous upon the first read will sometimes have major impacts on later stories. As readers will see in THE CURSE OF RAGDOLL, I've laid the groundwork for the sequel, and in fact, that's the reason why one of my Stretch Goal art prints is "The Vampiress." But I don't want to say too much and spoil any surprises!